The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Volume III Part 2

[32] The reader will readily call to mind the Neapolitan poet Sannazaro, whose fidelity to his royal master forms so beautiful a contrast with the conduct of Pontano, and indeed of too many of his tribe, whose grat.i.tude is of that sort that will only rise above zero in the suns.h.i.+ne of a court.

His various poetical effusions afford a n.o.ble testimony to the virtues of his unfortunate sovereign, the more unsuspicious as many of them were produced in the days of his adversity.

[33] "Neque mala vel bona," says the philosophic Roman, "quae vulgus putet; multos, qui conflictari udversis videantur, beatos; ac plerosque, quamquam magnas per opes, miserrimos; si illi gravem fortunam constanter tolerent, hi prospera inconsulte utantur." Tacitus, Annales, lib. 6, sect.

22.

[34] Zurita, Hist. del Rey Hernando, tom. i. lib. 4, cap. 35.--Giovio, Vitae Ill.u.s.t. Virorum, p. 230.--Chronica del Gran Capitan, cap. 21.-- Lanuza, Historias, tom. i. lib. 1, cap. 14.

[35] Abarca, Reyes de Aragon, tom. ii. rey 30, cap. 11, sec. 8.--Zurita, Hist. del Rey Hernando, tom. i. lib. 4, cap. 44.--Mariana, Hist. de Espana, tom. ii. lib. 27, cap. 9.

[36] Giovio, Vitae Ill.u.s.t. Virorum, p. 231.--Ulloa, Vita di Carlo V, fol.

9.--Giannone, Istoria di Napoli, lib. 29, cap. 3.--Chronica del Gran Capitan, cap. 31.

[37] Don Juan Mannel, the Spanish minister at Vienna, seems to hare been fully sensible of this trait of his master. He told the emperor Maximilian, who had requested the loan of 300,000 ducats from Spain, that it was as much money as would suffice King Ferdinand for the conquest, not merely of Italy, but Africa into the bargain. Zurita, Hist. del Rey Hernando, tom. i. lib. 3, cap. 42.

[38] Bembo, Istoria Viniziana, tom. III. lib. 6, p. 368.--Giovio, Vitae Ill.u.s.t. Virorum, p. 232.--D'Auton, part. 1, chap. 71, 72.

[39] Chronica del Gran Capitan, cap. 34.--Quintana, Espanoles Celebres, tom. i. pp. 252, 253.--Giovio, Vitae Ill.u.s.t. Virorum, p. 232.--Carta de Gonzalo, MS.

[40] Giovio, Vita Magni Gonsalvi, lib. 1, p. 233.

[41] Gonsalvo took the hint for this, doubtless, from Hannibal's similar expedient. See Polybius, lib. 8.

[42] Zurita, Hist. del Rey Hernando, tom. i. lib. 4, cap. 52, 53.-- Guicciardini, Istoria, tom. i. lib. 5, p. 270.--Giannone, Istoria di Napoli, lib. 29, cap. 3.--Muratori, Annali d'Italia, tom. xiv. p. 14.

The various authorities differ more irreconcilably than usual in the details of the siege. I have followed Paolo Giovio, a contemporary, and personally acquainted with the princ.i.p.al actors. All agree in the only fact, in which one would willingly see some discrepancy, Gonsalvo's breach of faith to the young duke of Calabria.

[43] Zurita, Hist. del Rey Hernando, tom. i. lib. 4, cap. 56.--Abarca, Reyes de Aragon, tom. ii. rey 30, cap. 11, sec. 10-12.--Ulloa, Vita di Carlo V., fol. 9.--Lanuza, Historias, lib. 1, cap. 14.

Martyr, who was present on the young prince's arrival at court, where he experienced the most honorable reception, speaks of him in the highest terms. "Adolescens namque est et regno et regio sanguine dignus, mirae indolis, forma egregius." (See Opus Epist., epist. 252.) He survived to the year 1550, but without ever quitting Spain, contrary to the fond prediction of his friend Sannazaro;

"Nam mihl, nam tempus veniet, c.u.m reddita sceptra Parthenopes, fractosque tua sub cuspide reges Ipse canam."

Opera Latina, Ecloga 4.

[44] Zurita, Hist. del Rey Hernando, lib. 4, cap. 58.--Giovio, Vitae Ill.u.s.t. Virorum, lib. 1, p. 234.

Mariana coolly disposes of Gonsalvo's treachery with the remark, "No parece se le guardo lo que tenian asentado. En la guerra quien hay que de todo punto lo guarde?" (Hist. de Espana, tom. ii. p. 675.)

----"Dolus an virtus, quis in hoste requirat?"

[45] In Gonsalvo's correspondence is a letter to the sovereigns written soon after the occupation of Tarento, in which he mentions his efforts to secure the duke of Calabria in the Spanish interests. The communication is too brief to clear up the difficulties in this dark transaction. As coming from Gonsalvo himself, it has great interest, and I will give it to the reader in the curious orthography of the original. "Asi en la platica que estava con el duque don fernando de ponerse al servicio y amparo de vuestras altecas syn otro partido ny ofrecimiento demas de certificarle que en todo tiempo seria libre para yr donde quisiese sy vuestras altezas bien no le tratasen y que vuestras altecas le ternian el respeto que a tal persona como el se deve. El conde de potenca e algunos de los que estan ceerca del han trabajado por apartarle de este proposito e levarle a Iscla asi yo por muchos modos he procurado de reducirle al servicio de vuestras altecas y tengole en tal termino que puedo certificar a vuestras altecas que este mozo no les saldra de la mano con consenso suyo del servicio de vuestras altecas asta tanto que vuestras altecas me embien a mandar como del he de disponer e de lo que con el se ha de facer y por las contrastes que en esto han entrevenido no ha salido de taranto porque asi ha convenido. El viernes que sera once de marzo saldra a castellaneta que es quince millas de aqui con algunos destos suyos que le quieren seguir con alguna buena parte de compania destos criados de vuestras altecas para acompanarle y este mismo dia viernes entrar an las vanderas e gente de vuestras altecas en el castillo de tarento con ayuda de nuestro Senor." De Tarento, 10 de Marzo, 1502, MS.

CHAPTER XI.

ITALIAN WARS.--RUPTURE WITH FRANCE.--GONSALVO BESIEGED IN BARLETA.

1502, 1503.

Rupture between the French and Spaniards.--Gonsalvo Retires to Barleta.-- Chivalrous Character of the War.--Tourney near Trani.--Duel between Bayard and Sotomayor.--Distress of Barleta.--Constancy of the Spaniards.

--Gonsalvo Storms and Takes Ruvo.--Prepares to Leave Barleta.

It was hardly to be expected that the part.i.tion treaty between France and Spain, made so manifestly in contempt of all good faith, would be maintained any longer than suited the convenience of the respective parties. The French monarch, indeed, seems to have prepared, from the first, to dispense with it, as soon as he had secured his own moiety of the kingdom; [1] and sagacious men at the Spanish court inferred that King Ferdinand would do as much, when he should be in a situation to a.s.sert his claims with success. [2]

It was altogether improbable, whatever might be the good faith of the parties, that an arrangement could long subsist, which so rudely rent asunder the members of this ancient monarchy; or that a thousand points of collision should not arise between rival hosts, lying as it were on their arms within bowshot of each other, and in view of the rich spoil which each regarded as its own. Such grounds for rupture did occur, sooner probably than either party had foreseen, and certainly before the king of Aragon was prepared to meet it.

The immediate cause was the extremely loose language of the part.i.tion treaty, which a.s.sumed such a geographical division of the kingdom into four provinces, as did not correspond with any ancient division, and still less with the modern, by which the number was multiplied to twelve. [3]

The central portion, comprehending the Capitanate, the Basilicate, and the Princ.i.p.ality, became debatable ground between the parties, each of whom insisted on these as forming an integral part of its own moiety. The French had no ground whatever for contesting the possession of the Capitanate, the first of these provinces, and by far the most important, on account of the tolls paid by the numerous flocks which descended every winter into its sheltered valleys from the snow-covered mountains of Abruzzo. [4] There was more uncertainty to which of the parties the two other provinces were meant to be a.s.signed. It is scarcely possible that language so loose, in a matter requiring mathematical precision, should have been unintentional.

Before Gonsalvo de Cordova had completed the conquest of the southern moiety of the kingdom, and while lying before Tarento, he received intelligence of the occupation by the French of several places, both in the Capitanate and Basilicate. He detached a body of troops for the protection of these countries, and, after the surrender of Tarento, marched towards the north to cover them with his whole army. As he was not in a condition for immediate hostilities, however, he entered into negotiations, which, if attended with no other advantage, would at least gain him time. [5]

The pretensions of the two parties, as might have been expected, were too irreconcilable to admit of compromise; and a personal conference between the respective commanders-in-chief led to no better arrangement, than that each should retain his present acquisitions, till explicit instructions could be received from their respective courts.

But neither of the two monarchs had further instructions to give; and the Catholic king contented himself with admonis.h.i.+ng his general to postpone an open rupture as long as possible, that the government might have time to provide more effectually for his support, and strengthen itself by alliance with other European powers. But, however pacific may have been the disposition of the generals, they had no power to control the pa.s.sions of their soldiers, who, thus brought into immediate contact, glared on each other with the ferocity of bloodhounds, ready to slip the leash which held them in temporary check. Hostilities soon broke out along the lines of the two armies, the blame of which each nation charged on its opponent.

There seems good ground, however, for imputing it to the French; since they were altogether better prepared for war than the Spaniards, and entered into it so heartily as not only to a.s.sail places in the debatable ground, but in Apulia, which had been unequivocally a.s.signed to their rivals. [6]

In the mean while, the Spanish court fruitlessly endeavored to interest the other powers of Europe in its cause. The emperor Maximilian, although dissatisfied with the occupation of Milan by the French, appeared wholly engrossed with the frivolous ambition of a Roman coronation. The pontiff and his son, Caesar Borgia, were closely bound to King Louis by the a.s.sistance which he had rendered them in their marauding enterprises against the neighboring chiefs of Romagna. The other Italian princes, although deeply incensed and disgusted by this infamous alliance, stood too much in awe of the colossal power, which had planted its foot so firmly on their territory, to offer any resistance. Venice alone, surveying from her distant watch-tower, to borrow the words of Peter Martyr, the whole extent of the political horizon, appeared to hesitate.

The French amba.s.sadors loudly called on her to fulfil the terms of her late treaty with their master, and support him in his approaching quarrel; but that wily republic saw with distrust the encroaching ambition of her powerful neighbor, and secretly wished that a counterpoise might be found in the success of Aragon. Martyr, who stopped at Venice on his return from Egypt, appeared before the senate, and employed all his eloquence in supporting his master's cause in opposition to the French envoys; but his pressing entreaties to the Spanish sovereigns to send thither some competent person, as a resident minister, show his own conviction of the critical position in which their affairs stood. [7]

The letters of the same intelligent individual, during his journey through the Milanese, [8] are filled with the most gloomy forebodings of the termination of a contest for which the Spaniards were so indifferently provided; while the whole north of Italy was alive with the bustling preparations of the French, who loudly vaunted their intention of driving their enemy not merely out of Naples, but Sicily itself. [9]

Louis the Twelfth superintended these preparations in person, and, to be near the theatre of operations, crossed the Alps, and took up his quarters at Asti. At length, all being in readiness, he brought things to an immediate issue, by commanding his general to proclaim war at once against the Spaniards, unless they abandoned the Capitanate in four-and-twenty hours. [10]

The French forces in Naples amounted, according to their own statements, to one thousand men-at-arms, three thousand five hundred French and Lombard, and three thousand Swiss infantry, in addition to the Neapolitan levies raised by the Angevin lords throughout the kingdom. The command was intrusted to the duke of Nemours, a brave and chivalrous young n.o.bleman of the ancient house of Armagnac, whom family connections more than talents had raised to the perilous post of viceroy over the head of the veteran D'Aubigny. The latter would have thrown up his commission in disgust, but for the remonstrances of his sovereign, who prevailed on him to remain where his counsels were more than ever necessary to supply the inexperience of the young commander. The jealousy and wilfulness of the latter, however, defeated these intentions; and the misunderstanding of the chiefs, extending to their followers, led to a fatal want of concert in their movements.

With these officers were united some of the best and bravest of the French chivalry; among whom may be noticed Jacques de Chabannes, more commonly known as the Sire de la Palice, a favorite of Louis the Twelfth, and well ent.i.tled to be so by his deserts; Louis d'Ars; Ives d'Alegre, brother of the Precy who gained so much renown in the wars of Charles the Eighth; and Pierre de Bayard, the knight "sans peur et sans reproche," who was then entering on the honorable career in which he seemed to realize all the imaginary perfections of chivalry. [11]

Notwithstanding the small numbers of the French force, the Great Captain was in no condition to cope with them. He had received no reinforcements from home since he first landed in Calabria. His little corps of veterans was dest.i.tute of proper clothing and equipments, and the large arrears due them made the tenure of their obedience extremely precarious. [12] Since affairs began to a.s.sume their present menacing aspect, he had been busily occupied with drawing together the detachments posted in various parts of Calabria, and concentrating them on the town of Atella in the Basilicate, where he had established his own quarters. He had also opened a correspondence with the barons of the Aragonese faction, who were most numerous as well as most powerful in the northern section of the kingdom, which had been a.s.signed to the French. He was particularly fortunate in gaining over the two Colonnas, whose authority, powerful connections, and large military experience proved of inestimable value to him. [13]

With all the resources he could command, however, Gonsalvo found himself, as before noticed, unequal to the contest, though it was impossible to defer it, after the peremptory summons of the French viceroy to surrender the Capitanate. To this he unhesitatingly answered, that "the Capitanate belonged of right to his own master; and that, with the blessing of G.o.d, he would make good its defence against the French king, or any other who should invade it."

Notwithstanding the bold front put on his affairs, however, he did not choose to abide the a.s.sault of the French in his present position. He instantly drew off with the greater part of his force to Barleta, a fortified seaport on the confines of Apulia, on the Adriatic, the situation of which would enable him either to receive supplies from abroad, or to effect a retreat, if necessary, on board the Spanish fleet, which still kept the coast of Calabria. The remainder of his army he distributed in Bari, Andria, Canosa, and other adjacent towns; where he confidently hoped to maintain himself till the arrival of reinforcements, which he solicited in the most pressing manner from Spain and Sicily, should enable him to take the field on more equal terms against his adversary. [14]

The French officers, in the mean time, were divided in opinion as to the best mode of conducting the war. Some were for besieging Bari, held by the ill.u.s.trious and unfortunate Isabella of Aragon; [15] others, in a more chivalrous spirit, opposed the attack of a place defended by a female, and advised an immediate a.s.sault on Barleta itself, whose old and dilapidated works might easily be forced, if it did not at once surrender. The duke of Nemours, deciding on a middle course, determined to invest the last- mentioned town; and, cutting off all communication with the surrounding country, to reduce it by regular blockade. This plan was unquestionably the least eligible of all, as it would allow time for the enthusiasm of the French, the _furia Francese_, as it was called in Italy, which carried them victorious over so many obstacles, to evaporate, while it brought into play the stern resolve, the calm, unflinching endurance, which distinguished the Spanish soldier. [16]

One of the first operations of the French viceroy was the siege of Canosa, a strongly fortified place west of Barleta, garrisoned by six hundred picked men under the engineer Pedro Navarro. The defence of the place justified the reputation of this gallant soldier. He beat off two successive a.s.saults of the enemy, led on by Bayard, La Palice, and the flower of their chivalry. He had prepared to sustain a third, resolved to bury himself under the ruins of the town rather than surrender. But Gonsalvo, unable to relieve it, commanded him to make the best terms he could, saying, "the place was of far less value, than the lives of the brave men who defended it." Navarro found no difficulty in obtaining an honorable capitulation; and the little garrison, dwindled to one-third of its original number, marched out through the enemy's camp, with colors flying and music playing, as if in derision of the powerful force it had so n.o.bly kept at bay. [17]

After the capture of Canosa, D'Aubigny, whose misunderstanding with Nemours still continued, was despatched with a small force into the south, to overrun the two Calabrias. The viceroy, in the mean while, having fruitlessly attempted the reduction of several strong places held by the Spaniards in the neighborhood of Barleta, endeavored to straiten the garrison there by desolating the surrounding country, and sweeping off the flocks and herds which grazed in its fertile pastures. The Spaniards, however, did not remain idle within their defences, but, sallying out in small detachments, occasionally retrieved the spoil from the hands of the enemy, or annoyed him with desultory attacks, ambuscades, and other irregular movements of _guerrilla_ warfare, in which the French were comparatively unpractised. [18]

The war now began to a.s.sume many of the romantic features of that of Granada. The knights on both sides, not content with the usual military rencontres, defied one another to jousts and tourneys, eager to establish their prowess in the n.o.ble exercises of chivalry. One of the most remarkable of these meetings took place between eleven Spanish and as many French knights, in consequence of some disparaging remarks of the latter on the cavalry of their enemies, which they affirmed inferior to their own. The Venetians gave the parties a fair field of combat in the neutral territory under their own walls of Trani. A gallant array of well-armed knights of both nations guarded the lists, and maintained the order of the fight. On the appointed day, the champions appeared in the field, armed at all points, with horses richly caparisoned, and barbed or covered with steel panoply like their masters. The roofs and battlements of Trani were covered with spectators, while the lists were thronged with the French and Spanish chivalry, each staking in some degree the national honor on the issue of the contest. Among the Castilians were Diego de Paredes and Diego de Vera, while the good knight Bayard was most conspicuous on the other side.

As the trumpets sounded the appointed signal, the hostile parties rushed to the encounter. Three Spaniards were borne from their saddles by the rudeness of the shock, and four of their antagonists' horses slain. The fight, which began at ten in the morning, was not to be protracted beyond sunset. Long before that hour, all the French save two, one of them the chevalier Bayard, had been dismounted, and their horses, at which the Spaniards had aimed more than at the riders, disabled or slain. The Spaniards, seven of whom were still on horseback, pressed hard on their adversaries, leaving little doubt of the fortune of the day. The latter, however, intrenching themselves behind the carca.s.ses of their dead horses, made good their defence against the Spaniards, who in vain tried to spur their terrified steeds over the barrier. In this way the fight was protracted till sunset; and, as both parties continued to keep possession of the field, the palm of victory was adjudged to neither, while both were p.r.o.nounced to have demeaned themselves like good and valiant knights. [19]

The tourney being ended, the combatants met in the centre of the lists, and embraced each other in the true companions.h.i.+p of chivalry, "making good cheer together," says an old chronicler, before they separated. The Great Captain was not satisfied with the issue of the fight. "We have, at least," said one of his champions, "disproved the taunt of the Frenchmen, and shown ourselves as good hors.e.m.e.n as they." "I sent you for better,"

coldly retorted Gonsalvo. [20]